


siblings are the poor man's love story

by Nyaow



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, POV Multiple, Suicide, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1607402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyaow/pseuds/Nyaow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Putting siblings together for the Quarter Quell, everyone quickly discovers, was a very, very bad idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	siblings are the poor man's love story

**Author's Note:**

> I had to seriously fuck around with family relations and ages in this. Just so you know in advance. 
> 
> No ships, though Cersei and Jaime are pretty heavily implied.

It’s the second Quarter Quell, which no one quite understands yet. This time the special twist is that two siblings will have to enter the area together, to remind the world that even families can tear each other apart.

“Sansa Stark!” the woman from the Capitol calls out, voice ringing clearly over the crowd gathered in the square. No one is surprised when, moments later, it’s “Robb Stark!” that she says next instead of Jon. Life just has a better sense of humor than that.

So the Starks stand there, clutching at each other’s hands, looking everywhere but each other, and the sun turns their hair into something brighter than fire.

 

 

At fifteen and thirteen, Robb and Sansa are the youngest of everyone.

Jaime Lannister of District One, age eighteen and the tribute everyone expects to win, looks them up and down. “I give them a day,” he says, and they hide away together, speaking to no one. He wonders if there’s a way to guarantee his sister will live.

But Theon Greyjoy of District Four, age sixteen, the one they’ve all silently decided is the most useless of the Career Pack they’re expected to make, says, “I don’t know. I give them at least two,” and there has to be a way to ditch this idiot when the game first starts.

(theon, for his part, wants to take asha and run away from the rest of the careers as fast as he can. district twelve might be useless as fuck, but they aren’t known for being backstabbing assholes either)

“Maybe _him_ ,” Loras Tyrell, age seventeen of District Two, says, also eyeing them. “I give her a number of hours.”

Other tributes mill around, hopeful eyes saying _maybe I can survive_ (maybe someone else will kill my brother, or, maybe someone else will kill my sister first), but it’s the Starks Jaime’s interested in. The Starks with too much color in them to be from District Twelve, that sunset hair and those beautiful stupid faces that come along with it. They cling to each other as tightly as he wants to cling to Cersei and maybe he’ll kill them first just to put them out of their misery.

 

 

(it seemed like a good idea at the time)

 

 

No one’s ever won from District Twelve before, and they had no mentor. Together, they figure it out as they go along. “Be terrible,” Robb tells her the night before they’re all judged separately, and they learned the bedrooms are the one place without cameras, so they curl up with each other in the dark under covers warmer than anything they own. “People will go for the good ones first.”

The logic here is sound and Sansa is thirteen with Robb at fifteen so she believes him (she has to, as he’s her older brother and that means he’s always right). “Do you have a plan?” she asks, because she wants him to. “You have your scheming face on.”

(age six and eight, and arya’s the evil who hides under the bed. sansa plays the damsel, wrapped up in imaginary silk, and jon and robb draw a plot on how to save a girl without soot caked under her nails. 

            they didn’t know at the time that the monsters have clean, clear skin, too)

“I don’t have a scheming face,” her brother answers, and she can’t see much in the dark, but she imagines he’s smiling. “Anyway, so I was thinking—the Careers keep watching us, right? But the Greyjoys sit a little apart, so it’s got to be more split this year than it usually is. What if we get them on our side instead?”

“But why would they team up with two people with terrible scores?”

Now he really does smile and she can see it, that flash of white bright as his blue eyes and every girl in his year wanted to date him. “I said you should have terrible scores, not me,” he says, and she shudders at the implications. “Hey, don’t worry—you heard Jon, too. We Starks are hard to kill.”

(but they aren’t, not really, just blood and guts and bits of bone and skin to keep them all together)

Before she can say anything, Robb continues, “I’m going to make sure you survive this, Sansa. And you don’t have to kill anyone to do it, either.”

“Everyone has to kill to survive the games.” This is a fact she’s already come to accept.

For a moment, he doesn’t move. Then he tucks her hair behind her ear and kisses her forehead like Mom used to do before bed when they were kids. “Just because no one’s ever done it before doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” he tells her. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

And Sansa whispers, “Goodnight, Robb,” because that’s easier than arguing.

 

 

First it shows the girl’s score, a three, and then the boy’s score, an eight.

“He got a better score than me,” Viserys says in disbelief. “How the fuck did a District Twelve kid get a better score than _me?_ ”

Loras Tyrell and Jaime Lannister received higher scores than her brother, too, and he made no comments because they were _Careers_ , it was _expected._ But it’s Sansa’s score that Dany’s interested. A three is the lowest in living memory. That can’t be accidental.

Apparently Jorah Mormont, their mentor, agrees. “Watch out for them,” he says, leaning over the back of the couch. “ _Both_ of them.”

Though she sees it, her brother doesn’t, protests against it even, and she wonders what these two are playing at for Sansa Stark to willingly get a three.

 

 

Last year there was a boy in the same year the Stark twins and he said, “Robb Stark can charm a girl out of a skirt and the dick doesn’t even have to smile,” and that’s all Jon can think of as he watches his twin join the show host on the stage.

He doesn’t smile. He’ll save the smiling for Sansa, who can sing like a bird and talk prettier than any Capitol girl out there. “ _What do you think of the Quarter Quell’s lineup this year, Robb?_ ” the show host asks and his own grin goes out to the crowd, or the boy on stage with him, or maybe the people forced to watch from screens in the privacy of their homes.

Jon bites at his nails, and neither Mom nor Dad tell him to stop.

“ _Oh, the special twist this time?_ ” Robb answers, and Jon knows he knows that’s not what the guy means. “ _Well, you know. Siblings. It’s like a poor man’s equivalent to a love story._ ”

(there’s a young girl named mags eight districts away forced to watch who in nearly fifty years time will be an old woman instead, a victor herself, and she’ll watch another boy and girl from twelve fall in love and think, this is the love story a rich man can afford.

            and then robb stark never gets to see it because spoiler alert: he dies)

Even though the crowd laughs, the show host’s smile is frozen on his face and Dad swears, a rare occasion, because that had to piss at least important one person off. “The Capitol is going to kill him before any of the other tributes can even reach him,” Mom says, and Arya’s hand finds Jon’s, gripping it tightly.

“No, they won’t,” she says, and her voice comes out stronger than he thought it would. “Sansa will fix it.”

Yes, she’ll fix it, and no, the Capital won’t kill him for it, but Jon knows that no, his twin isn’t coming out of here alive. Because for the Starks, family is most important and no one is tearing them apart.

 

 

Sansa talks. The whole world listens. Her hair is fire, her dress a single strip of fabric that shifts between orange and red and yellow with a train of golden lace. Her words vapid, her lips red.

People don’t know where to look, so they settle for everywhere but the ice of her eyes.

 

 

(there were once a brother and sister made of fire and ice instead of just a girl on fire, and sansa stark is a better mimic than any mockingjay to ever live. mags, years later, old now and deteriorating but refusing to give in because the capitol barely deserves one love story let alone two, tries to tell katniss everdeen about the children that never were. about the girl who survived with clean hands and the boy too smart for his good. about how they were sunsets instead of flames.  

            unfortunately, katniss doesn’t understand her.

            mags ran out of words a long time ago, and the stark siblings continue to go on forgotten)

 

 

For all his life, Robb’s loved the cold, and when he gets wrapped up in a warm coat and padded pants and finds himself staring out across a frozen wasteland, he knows he and Sansa have to be one of the few people relieved. Ygritte, a girl with hair as red as his sister’s, and her brother Orell are the only others.

Then the shot sounds, he jumps off his platform, and chaos erupts throughout the arena.

He takes Sansa by the hand, and together they’re two of the first to the Cornucopia. The Greyjoys are there, too, though, and somehow Theon’s already gotten his hand on a bow. There’s a moment of limbo, two arrows pointed at both Stark faces from the other siblings, and it’s a split second decision when Robb asks, “What else do you need?”

“Knives are always helpful,” Asha says after she and her brother exchange glances and he must’ve been right earlier when he though they were somehow separate from the other Careers. “Another bow and quiver. Be quick, we’ll cover you.”

(the moment theon sees that three, he says, no one can actually suck that bad, and asha answers, they’re less like to betray us, and they picked their teammates before the game even started)

To keep safe, they’re quick about it. This year there are only weapons, and grabbing four knives is shockingly easy. When Robb goes to take one of the last bows and quivers, though, the Ygritte girl’s got her hands on it, too, and there’s another moment where everything freezes. Then Sansa says, “We’re already allied with two of the Careers. Do you really think you’re going to survive against the Lannisters and Tyrells alone?” and the girl grins.

Ygritte grabs the final bow and quiver while Robb takes these, and the Greyjoys don’t so much as look confused before the six of them take off towards the trees.

 

 

For the first time in all fifty years of the Hunger Games, there’s only one casualty at the Cornucopia. Her name was Lysa Baelish, and some time within the next three days, her brother Petyr will join the Lannisters against the Starks. Because that’s what it becomes, ultimately: the Lannisters against the Starks.

The second death, and only other death of the first day, happens only three hours later. Even before they entered the arena, Dany knew her brother was going to kill her, get it over with fast so he no longer had the liability of a familial relations to survive the game. That she expected. What she hadn’t expected was the arrow through his heart before his sword could go through hers.

When she looks up, the girl with red hair from District Eight still has her bow held out. Sansa Stark, the one with the three, extends her hand to help Dany up and says, “I’m sorry for your loss, Daenerys. Would you like allies?”

Though she’s known them for less than five minutes, she trusts this group of six more than she trusts her brother. “Well, you can’t do much worse than what he was planning,” she answers, and Theon Greyjoy hands her back her knife.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Jaime Lannister convinces the Tarths and the Martells to ally with them because Cersei and Margaery saw the Greyjoys walk by the Rayders and Starks in tow.

And so begins the longest of the Hunger Games.

(and so begins the war that never was)

 

 

Since Daenerys’ hair is as white as her skin and their clothing already made to blend in with the snow, they turn her into their scout. “I’m pretty sure they all hate each other, but their numbers total at nine. They got Baelish,” she says, and for three days now the seven of them have been together, none of them ever making a move to kill anyone else. They might just be the first tributes to really become friends. Theon isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

(ygritte thinks this is probably a bad thing, but she likes them all too much to care. and this is saying something, because she doesn’t like anybody.

            well, maybe it’s good that she knows what it’s like to have friends before she dies)

Robb nods, and bites the side of his nails. Neither he nor his sister wears gloves, and despite their fiery red hair, everyone here is convinced their insides must be made of ice for them to be so immune to the cold like this. “With the exception of the Greyjoys, they already have more training than us,” he says, and over the past few days Theon’s been teaching him how to shoot a bow. “We don’t want them to outnumber us, too. Probably the more allies we gather, the more allies they’ll gather too.”

Even though no one actually elected him as leader, he quickly became their unofficial one. Considering he and his sister are the two youngest here, it should piss Theon off, but it just sort of doesn’t. “Some of the people here are more likely to kill us than ally with us,” he says, thinking of Stannis Baratheon’s overly intense eyes and how they compare nothing at all to Meli-whatever, his sister.

“Not if we make it sound like it’s their best chance of survival,” Robb answers. “Think about it—we can build it up easy enough, us against the Lannisters and the Tyrells. Which of us is more likely to stick a sword through your back?”

“If we turn this isn’t a choice of us or the Lannister, we’re turning this into an all out war,” Ygritte says (and wouldn’t have much of a problem with that).

Her brother says, “I’m pretty sure making it into a war is the opposite of the point behind these things.”

As Robb shrugs, Sansa says, “As long as we die, I don’t think it matters how,” and no one has an answer for that.

Theon doesn’t want his death to be making a point of anything. The point for him is that Asha makes it out, and he doesn’t care how.

 

 

Both the Tarlys and the Tullys die before anyone in the Stark group can reach them, and they only know this from the canons and faces in the sky signaling the end of each day. “We’re your best bet,” Robb tells Stannis and Mel after cornering them five days in, hiding out in a cave. “The Lannisters or whoever’s with them will kill you slow and bloody and you can’t take out nine people at once.”

“We’ll all have to kill each other, too,” Mel answers. “What makes the Starks any better?”

It’s only Robb in here, though, one fifteen-year-old all on his own and Stannis has to admire his ill-fated courage if not necessarily his intelligence for this. “Because we’ve already acknowledged that, and we’ve come to an understanding,” the kid answers. “When the whole other side is dead and we’re the only ones left, who’re we going to be fighting for? Our brother or our sister, depending, unless you’re an asshole, in which case you’re fighting for yourself. We’ve all agreed that when the time comes for us to turn on each other, we keep the deaths quick. Nothing painful, nothing that’ll last long. It’s not as good as not killing each other period, but it’s the best we can do.”

Even though his sister believes that fire is the purest death there is (their older brother davos was always wary of her, said even to watch his back before he left, but stannis doesn’t doubt she’ll watch out for him as closely as he watches out for her), he likes the idea of specifying a quick death, a painless one, because that’s what these games are all about. So he looks from Mel to this boy, this boy who was disenchanted with life long before they stepped foot inside this frozen wasteland, and says, “Lead the way.”

Robb Stark’s smile is a little wild, and a little dark, and in the light grey fur of his coat he reminds Stannis strongly of a wolf.

 

 

The first person to die once everyone is divided is Renly Tarth.

“He liked you,” Brienne says once she’s done crying, and there are tear tracks stained on her cheeks. They looked nothing alike. “That’s why we agreed to ally with you.”

Loras reaches up to brush across his eyes, and Margaery rubs his back. “In another life,” he says, and leaves it at that.

Even though she knows they’re all going to kill each other in the end, Brienne vows to kill the Baratheons anyway because no one deserves to die like that.

 

 

(melisandre is smart, and she might not be the stark siblings with their hair bright instead of dark, made of fire everyone says, but she certainly likes to use it. so she devises a smoke bomb of a supplies of the forest, with flint and evergreen needles and an exceptionally large pinecone. they roll it into their enemy’s camp, right into that pretty fire elia martell has built, and watch as the area becomes covered in a thick smoke smelling of forests and flames.

            no one in the lannister’s group notices ygritte rayder’s arrow. no one in the lannister group notices the fire that flickers on the end. not until it’s buried deep in renly tarth’s back.

            the flint in the smoke bomb clings to his clothes, and the flames spread throughout his body.

            renly tarth dies shrieking, prolonged enough for the mockingjays to pick up his song, and fire—oh, fire is the purest death there is)

 

 

For the Stark group, the first to die is Orell. It’s night, and they’ve split up to stab in the rivers for food, and Loras fucking Tyrell comes from the tree line.

“For Renly,” he says, and runs the boy through the heart. The canon sounding is the only clue to his friends that they have to hide.

Inside the cave they dove into together alone, Sansa clutches onto Ygritte and pets at her hair. “He’d want you to survive,” she says through her friend’s declarations for revenge, and Ygritte pauses, looks at her with a cold sort of anger and answers, “You know nothing, Sansa Stark.”

(sansa knows a lot of things, actually, and right now she knows loras tyrell should fear a lot more than death alone)

 

 

So this is the problem: they like each other. They like each other a lot.

A week and a half now they’ve been here, and only eight of twenty-four people have died. Normally it’s eight dead within the first day, and Robb wonders if those in charge yet have realized pitting siblings against each other was a really shitty idea. “How long do you think it’ll take before a third part is thrown in here to kill us off faster?” Dany asks, and Robb picks at his squirrel-like thing. “Most games I’ve seen are done by now.”

Next to him, Theon shrugs and stretches, back popping, and Robb doesn’t understand how a Career became his best friend here. “Either that or they’ll start taking away our food supply, but starvation sounds like such a boring way to die compared to burning alive,” he says, and Stannis knocks his sister on the arm (over the past few days dany’s noticed that any softhearted parts of them have faded away, except maybe sansa, and she can see exactly what robb intends to do). “We kill a bunch of them quick, or that’ll happen sooner or later.”

“Well, they’re in the trees, we’re in the open,” Robb says, because he’s been thinking this too. “We’ll have to do a night attack without any lights. If split into two groups, make one a distraction so they split, too, we’ll be able to take out more. Taking out either the Lannisters or the Tyrells would have to be top priority, but not necessarily the objective.”

(dany finds it horribly ironic that the brother and sister the stylist turned into symbols of fire prefer using cold as their plan instead)

“I want Loras,” Ygritte says, but she’s overlapped by Stannis adding, “It would help if we could reverse the situation. The forest is more advantageous than out here.”

Everyone just sort of nods in agreement, and Robb doesn’t know how he’s going to kill anyone here, especially Theon, who asks, “So, how’s tomorrow sound?” with the dumbest fucking smile on his face Robb’s ever seen.

“If you let any of them get the jump on your ten days in, baby brother,” Asha says, “I’ll find a way to resurrect you and kill you all over again.”

Theon laughs, sound quiet because they’re all so good at quiet by now, and Sansa lays her head on Robb’s shoulder.

 

 

Until the screaming starts, it doesn’t so much as cross Jaime’s mind that the Greyjoys could be setting a trap. And it isn’t until he sees District Twelve’s boy stab Margaery in the heart with her own knife _as she’s holding it_ that he realizes it’s the Starks he should’ve been worrying about all along.

In one attack, they lose the Tyrells and they lose Petyr, and Ygritte Rayder took out Loras like it was nothing. If it weren’t for Asha’s scream, then Theon probably would’ve gotten him somewhere much deadlier than the thigh and maybe Jaime was wrong for underestimating him.

(and theon, theon thought he would savor that moment where the great jaime lannister learned he was more than everyone thought but that was asha and she was screaming. that was asha, who didn’t cry when mom died and didn’t scream when she shattered the bones in her arm. but he never had quite her emotional reservation and cries harder than he knows his dad thinks is acceptable. robb holds him together, which makes it worse, but he doesn’t give a damn one way or the other)

When he makes it down to the others, he’s limping badly, bleeding from his leg, and they’ve been forced out of the forest. Cersei’s anger is gathered tight around her mouth. “No one?” she says, and he shakes his head.

(who did it, theon asks, and sansa answers, oberyn martell, and the only thing that keeps him from going after all of them right then is robb’s arms gripping at his shoulders)

“We were wrong,” he tells the four left in his group and there’s never been a game divided right down the middle like this before. He wasn’t taught how to deal with this. “It’s the Starks. Robb told Ygritte  to ‘get it over with’ when it came to Loras, and she listened.”

“Twelve is supposed to be the laughingstock,” Elia says, and there’s an edge of numbness to her voice. “They were supposed to be the easy ones.”

(he forced margaery tyrell’s knife around when she went to attack him, ygritte tells everyone once theon is asleep. if you’re this willing to fight for your sister, robb, you’d be horrifying fighting for a woman you love.

            well, it’s like during the interview, he says. siblings are the poor man’s love story.

            sansa laughs until she cries)

Easy. Ha. They were wrong, and something about this game is wrong, and Jaime wonders if it would almost be better to kill Cersei now. At least he’d make sure it’s quick and painless, and in the end, that matters almost as much as surviving.

(if the rest of them cry for asha, too, well, no one needs to know about that)

 

 

The Gamemakers, perhaps to add something different, light a fire in the dead of the night. They run sideways instead of down, trying to avoid entering the Lannisters’ territory, and it isn’t long before Stannis trips, bringing Theon down with him.

For a horrible moment, Theon thinks they’re all about to die, but then Mel smiles and says, “Fire is the purest of deaths” — (and she thinks to herself, privately so no one important gets any ideas, if they take one of us, it will stop)

Stannis is screaming, “No, don’t, you can still stop—Melisandre!” and Theon holds him down, holds him back because his sister smiled and said, “Please.”

Then she steps in, and the onslaught ends as if it hit a wall.

(mel tells herself, as she enter into the flames, screaming will given satisfaction to those who are undeserving)

When everything fades and the smoke clears, the hovercraft has already taken her body away. She hadn’t screamed, and he wonders if that makes her better than all of them combined.

 

 

Ygritte has her head on Theon’s shoulder, half asleep, and Dany has her head against _her_ shoulder while across the cave Sansa and Robb curl up together. “If only we,” Ygritte starts to say, and stops, because she doesn’t need to continue.

Everyone already understands.

If only they could kill the others and live here alone, untouched.

(looking at the starks, the only two siblings left whole outside of the lannisters and the martells, dany thinks she doesn’t care so much about surviving anymore as long as sansa gets to go home. maybe the others agree. she certainly hopes so)

“Yeah,” Robb says, which is all for tonight.

 

 

This was always Robb’s plan, in one simple step: have Sansa survive, but keep her innocent at the same time. In return, he didn’t care how bloodstained he’d have to get his hands in the process. Once he accepted that, he let himself stop caring about how many enemies he’d have to kill and that running any of his allies through was going to hurt worse than he could possibly imagine. Still, until it came to that, he could focus on protecting his sister.

He hadn’t expected anyone to become so protective of anyone else, too, or for them to become so protective in return.

Dany clutches at Stannis, who has one of Elia’s knives buried deep inside his chest, and Robb’s only consolation is that he took down Brienne before his friend took the hit. “You won’t die,” Dany says, smiling and shaking her hair with her white hair and pale skin splashed with dark red (it’s fire, burning robb and sansa’s winter away). “No, you won’t leave us that easily.”

But Stannis’ eyes are already losing focus. He reaches up to grip at her waist. “My sister always said you had fire inside you,” he tells her, and his voice is jagged glass. “That Theon is the sea, the Starks are ice, and I’m light. Don’t burn. I didn’t protect you just so you could…”

(the last thing stannis sees is daenerys targaryen smiling, with theon’s water running waves through the fire on her cheeks. robb and sansa stark are the only good winter he’s ever come to know)

Sansa pries her off when he finally leaves them in just enough time for the hovercraft to leave them away. “The Lannisters and the Martells are the only ones left on that side,” Dany says, and she’s the scariest thing Robb’s seen so far with the blood across her face and hair. “My own brother—Viserys would have killed me without a second thought if it meant he could live, but the same can’t be said for the rest of you. We all might have to die in the end, but first let’s show them what it means to lose the ones they love.”

Even though Robb told himself he was desensitized, he knows now he wasn’t. Suddenly something’s snapped, something that’s snapped in all of them, because she has Stannis’ blood on her face and he has Brienne’s blood on his arms and no one cares. The apathy is fucking wonderful.

 

 

Over two weeks. This is the longest Hunger Game in history.

“They’re too damn smart,” Jon says, biting the side of thumbnail. “Of course a war’s going to last longer than a free-for-all.”

By now the Gamemakers are trying to kill them too. It’s always nighttime. The random fires are their best source of light, but it’s colder. Sansa came up with the answer, and they’d already taught themselves how to skin animals. She’d always been such a proper little lady, the type not normally found in their District, and it didn’t take long to form thread for their original clothes and stitch the furs together for additional warmth. Both teams sleep huddled together. Food’s scarcer, but it’s never gone completely because someone important somewhere must consider starvation too boring, like Theon said.

Mom glances at him, and grips harder at the blanket she’s holding. It’s gone on so long they’ve returned to school and work. No one says it, but the whole family’s thinking it:

Robb and Sansa are only alive out of spite.

 

 

(they’re like wolves, young mags hears the martell boy say one night. winter wolves.

            which ones? cersei asks. greyjoy doesn’t seem too wolf-like to me.

            he means the starks, her brother answers. their stylist was a fucking idiot for dressing them up like fire.

            and mags, little mags, will one day be an old, big mags, and won’t understand why a bird is a better symbol than a wolf)

 

 

“Ros, I love you,” Theon says one night, or what they think is night, when the others are asleep. “If the Gamemakers don’t omit this, just thought you should know that.”

(ros, in front of the screen back home, manages to make it her room before she cries)

The Gamemakers omitted it too fast, he figures, but he can die easier knowing he said it.

 

 

In the darkness, the Starks’ and Ygritte’s hair shines bright as any flame, even if Robb and Sansa are made of ice. Finding them in the nighttime doesn’t take long.

 Jaime kills the Targaryen girl with a stab through the back, feels his sword slip through her spine and out through her front. She was alive just long enough, though, to get out a cry of warning, and Greyjoy has an arrow to his bow, aimed at Cersei. There’s no regret at all when Jaime “accidently” pushes Elia in front of her just as Oberyn turns his back.

(and elia—well, she knew it would coming one of these days, either her or her brother, because the lannister twins are so wrapped up inside each other they can’t tell up from down)

Somehow the Stark girl, in all the confusion, managed to take their flint and light fire to a tree. The flames catch the underbrush, Rayder yanks back Robb, and Oberyn, Jaime, and his twin to run. The ends of Cersei’s hair, tied back in a braid, catch fire, and he doesn’t even think before he grabs it and cuts the burning fiery part off before that can spread, too. Sansa’s robbed of her first kill, and it isn’t until they’re slowed down, tumbling out of the forest and back into their territory, that he feels the pain.

“Your hand,” Cersei says, taking his in both of hers, and Oberyn stares off into the distance, seeing nothing. “Jaime, your hand.”

He smiles, and uses his uninjured one to tuck her bangs that came undone from the fire behind her ear. Everything smells of burnt bodies and burnt hair. “It doesn’t hurt,” he lies. “Don’t worry about me, Cersei, not yet.”

They’re in a land of ice and snow and all they seem to use is fire. He wonders if their father’s realized yet that he’d burn the whole world to ash if it meant keeping his sister alive.

 

(tywin lannister looks down at his children, at jaime with his damaged hand and cersei with her damaged hair while oberyn martell grieves, and to the others, who huddle together so close even the camera can’t pick up on what they’re doing. hurry it up, he tells his team, this has taken long enough already.

            this isn’t the first time he’s given this order. he doubts it will be his last)

 

 

Losing Dany hurt like a bitch, but they’re all used to their friends dying by this point. When Robb turned this into all-out war, he hadn’t expected them to get so attached, Sansa thinks.

Now it’s hit the month mark, and the temperature’s dropped further. “Both of us have just stopped giving a shit,” Ygritte says, watching a twin column of smoke twist into the air from the Lannister camp, matching their own. “It’s too fucking cold to do anything.”

Theon nods, shivering so bad his teeth rattle together, and buries even deeper into their homemade blanket pile in between her and Robb. “It doesn’t get this cold in District Four.”

“It doesn’t get this cold _anywhere_ ,” Sansa tells him, and presses herself closer to her brother. “Do you think the others do this, too?”

Suddenly the canon sounds, loud enough to make them jump, and it’s almost too well timed. After a moment of silence, Robb says, “Maybe one of them froze to death,” with a vein of hopefulness to his voice that makes Ygritte laugh.

“Maybe,” she says, and Sansa doubts it.

(in truth it’s this: oberyn decides he can’t look at the lannisters a moment longer, that there’s no way he’ll survive on his own or kill one of them or any of the starks’ group, so he does the smart thing and takes his knife to his neck. jaime and cersei are here, awake and think he doesn’t know it, and don’t make a move to stop him)

Theon, through his chattering teeth, says they’ll find out within a few hours when it’s actually nighttime. “Get some sleep,” he adds at the end. “I’ll take first watch.”

It’s cold, but warm enough as it is most days, and Sansa dreams of wolves ripping out Cersei Lannister’s throat.

 

 

Most Hunger Games don’t have suicides. This one’s had two.  Robb isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“Why would he do that?” Sansa asks, wiping her eyes with the back of her eyes (and it reminds Ygritte that she’s really just a little girl, in the end) after the body’s taken away. “He just—there was indication or anything.”

Robb doesn’t really get it either, or maybe he does and he’s denying it, but Ygritte just looks to his sister and says, “You know nothing, Sansa Stark,” in a voice that’s sad instead of spiteful (because she does, in the end, understand. the capitol took away her brother, just like it took away asha and now theon, but the starks are still here and they’re together and whoever thought siblings was a good idea was a fucking idiot).

By now, they’ve lost almost their whole team, same as the Lannisters, but this death hurts different from everyone else. Somehow they beat the odds, they all became friends in the middle of a game, but Theon was his _best_ friend—his only best friend, really. Back home, Robb stuck to Jon’s side and Jon to his, the inseparable Stark twins of District Twelve. He’d never had anyone like Theon before, and now he’s gone.

At least he didn’t have to kill him, he figures, and hates how that’s even thought.

 

 

When Ygritte dies, her death is slow and painful and brought on by a giant black bird. “Gamemakers,” she says with a short laugh, and her grip on Sansa’s hand is slowly loosening. “So inventive.”

Robb’s not here, off hunting for food, and neither of them would dare cry out because they can’t see the smoke from the Lannister fire. “I’m going to miss you,” Sansa says, and keeps in her tears. “I really, really will.”

(she means it, too, which is what ygritte hates the most. the pain is spreading from the wound throughout her body and all she wants is for the younger girl to lie, to say she’s not going to die, even though she clearly is, but they’re long past the point of humoring each other. maybe that’s what hurts worst of all)

“Make it out of here alive, Stark,” Ygritte says, and blood bubbles in her mouth. “You can have a baby girl with red hair, name her after me. But don’t—don’t you dare be s-sad when you lo—look at her.”

“I won’t,” Sansa promises, shaking her head. “I swear I won’t.”

(once upon a time there was a girl with a bright red hair who never had the chance to fall in love, or graduate school, or know her mother’s smile. once upon a time there was a girl kissed by fire who died in a land of ice and snow because a bird plucked out her insides.

            and once upon a time there was a girl whose flame was going out, but died knowing she’d never be forgotten by the people who matter)

Just as her body’s carried away, Robb comes back, and Sansa sobs into his shoulder.

 

 

They should just get it over and done with, say damn everything and stop caring, but Jaime is Jaime and if he wants her to live so badly, then she’s the only one who’s allowed to kill him.

All that’s left now are them and the Starks, and Cersei’s got her knife to Sansa’s throat while Robb has an arrow shoved right against Jaime’s jugular. She’s not fool enough to think he won’t go through with it. “Release my sister first and I’ll release him,” he says, and draws blood when Jaime starts to protest. “We’ll go our separate ways and leave killing each other for a another day.”

“How do I know you won’t just kill him the moment I let her go?” Cersei asks, and Sansa’s silent and motionless in her arms (because she knows that if she does anything that puts her at risk, robb will chide her for it later).

“I don’t trust your honor, Lannister,” he answers, “but I know you trust mine.”

Yes, she knows she can trust him, this boy who started a war and probably changed the rules to the Hunger Games forever. Her father will never allow something like this to happen again because this must have gone long past the point of entertainment. And Jaime, her dear darling Jaime who she won’t get back otherwise, is pleading wordlessly for her to slit Sansa Stark’s throat.

Instead she lets go. Robb waits until his sister is out of sight before letting Jaime go, too.

(and sansa thinks he’s an idiot for it, but knows better than to expect anything different)

 

 

After Cersei dies, Jaime screams at the sky, and Robb huddles with Sansa inside a cave, not willing to risk making a run for the trees or taking the older boy head on. Robb’s smarter, probably, but Lannister’s better at everything else.

“Fuck honor,” Sansa says quickly while the boy outside rages on. “He’ll cry himself to sleep eventually.”

By this point, Robb doubts his sister would even care if she had to kill someone, but he made a promise to himself and to her and intends to keep it. She won’t have to do it if she doesn’t it have to.

And in the end she doesn’t, because some time later Lannister falls asleep, and Robb takes Theon’s bow and his final arrow. He hadn’t had much time to learn, but it was enough to hit an immobile target, and the pointed tip finds its way into the other boy’s heart. It was a lucky shot, immobile or not, and he gets to die without even waking up, that lucky bastard.

 

 

(is this what you wanted, his son was shouting only hours before. was this punishment for our sins. are you satisfied knowing you got your unborn grandchild killed, and don’t you dare blame robb stark. this is on you.

            no one looks at him as he walks out, the emotionally frozen president here to oversee it all. that was his son, his oldest son, and only daughter, and he wishes beyond measure that some other siblings had volunteered in their place. they were eighteen, one year away. he could have done something about their mistakes himself.

            don’t you dare blame robb stark.

            this is on you.

            tywin doesn’t need anyone telling him what he already knows)

 

 

There’s not some grand finale. The whole world already knows what’s going to happen. Sansa shakes her head, and Robb pulls out his knife. “You deserve to go home more than I do,” she says, and he has a feeling that she genuinely believes it. “Please let me do this instead.”

He leans forward and kisses her forehead, presses the end of his blade against his heart, which is beating faster than he was hoping it would. “No, I have to. And I’m the older brother, so everything I say is right,” he tells her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says, and gathers him close in her arms, and he just barely maneuvers his body so that the knife doesn’t touch her and the kill won’t be considered hers. This will be the Hunger Games of the fire, ice, and suicide. “Don’t do this, Robb. Please, I’m begging you, don’t do this.”

“Someone has to. President’s orders.” And he really, really doesn’t want die, but he forces himself to smile anyway. “This can practically be labeled ‘Tywin Lannister sends his regards.’”

Then she moves, looks as though maybe she’s about to take the knife from him, but he’s faster and shoves it through his chest. The last thing he hears is, “Robb, I love you,” and the last thing he sees is her hair like fire and her eyes like ice.

 

 

(mags, years later, watches the star-crossed lovers of district twelve beat the odds and thinks all the starks needed were berries instead of a knife)

 

 

Arya is the first to hug Sansa when she comes home, and the rest of the family soon follows. “I’m sorry,” she says, and keeps on saying it for a year no matter how many times everyone tells her Robb’s death wasn’t her fault. But she has to, because she’s the one person in the family who resembles him, and sometimes Jon in particular looks at her and she wonders if he sees his twin instead. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The day before the oncoming tour, Sansa adds another suicide to the list of 50th Hunger Games tributes. As she’s a victor, the funeral would normally be large enough and stupidly extravagant enough to belong to the Capitol. Instead it’s small, and meaningless, because everyone important has already begun the process of wiping it from history.

By the time the 74th comes around, it’s gone.


End file.
